Design Director

Critical Playground LLC; Guildford; Hybrid; GBP 62,000 - 68,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Pension scheme

Birthday day off

Volunteer days

Job summary

Critical Playground LLC in Guildford is seeking a Design Director to lead creative direction for brand and campaign work, shaping ideas that work across social-first channels and traditional media. You will oversee brand identities, guidelines, and toolkits for regional/global rollouts, and direct a freelance bench across film, photography, and animation.

You will collaborate closely with the Executive Creative Director, mentoring senior creatives, and ensuring high-quality work before client

Qualifications

• Around 8+ years in an agency or studio, with time at senior, lead or director level.
• Strong conceptual thinking: you generate original ideas rather than jumping straight to execution.
• Brand strategy awareness — positioning, audiences, and connecting business objectives to creative solutions.
• Fluency in social-first, platform-native campaign creative.
• An exceptional eye for detail and strong typographic craft.
• Confident with print artwork and production.
• Experience briefing and directing freelancers — photographers, filmmakers, animators and other specialists.
• Experience with high-profile brands and/or complex campaign rollouts.
• Figma as your day-to-day, alongside advanced Adobe CS. Motion skills an advantage

Responsibilities

• Leading creative direction across brand and campaign work.
• Developing campaign ideas that work across multiple channels — social-first content through to print and environmental.
• Building and evolving brand identities, visual systems, guidelines and campaign toolkits for regional and global rollout.
• Directing our freelance bench, including film, video and photography direction and editing.
• Quality-checking work to both creative and technical standards before it leaves the studio.
• Presenting and defending work directly to clients.
• Bringing creative thinking into pitches and new business alongside the ECD.

Skills

Creative direction

Brand strategy

Social-first campaigns

Typography craft

Print production

Freelancer management

Portfolio development

Team leadership

Sports/brand storytelling

Tools

Figma

Adobe Creative Suite

Motion graphics

Job description

Design Director

Orangery® — Guildford, Surrey

Full-time · Hybrid · £62,000–£68,000

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We're a six-person B-Corp studio in Guildford looking for a Design Director. A senior, hands‑on creative who can take an idea, elevate it, and drive it through to work we're all proud to put our name on.

Around half your time will be spent on a global sports brand moving into brand‑first, social‑first campaign work — brand guidelines, campaign toolkits, and regional and global rollouts. The other half is varied: rebrands, strategic design projects and campaigns for clients across technology and B2B.

You'll work closely with our Executive Creative Director, and you'll direct our freelance bench of 2D, 3D, animation, film and photography specialists, setting the standard and holding the line on quality. There's real scope to get out on shoots, directing photography and video. We're genuinely collaborative — ideas come from everywhere here, and the best one wins regardless of who had it. Leadership is earned, and it's there to take.

Everyone here is senior enough to manage their own work and their own diary, and is trusted to get on with it. No unnecessary layers, no agency politics.

We're also early in our AI journey, building it into how we brief, research and produce. If that interests you, it's a good moment to join.

The role

• Leading creative direction across brand and campaign work
• Developing campaign ideas that work across multiple channels — social‑first content through to print and environmental
• Building and evolving brand identities, visual systems, guidelines and campaign toolkits for regional and global rollout
• Directing our freelance bench, including film, video and photography direction and editing
• Quality‑checking work to both creative and technical standards before it leaves the studio
• Presenting and defending work directly to clients
• Bringing creative thinking into pitches and new business alongside the ECD

What we're looking for

• Around 8+ years in an agency or studio, with time at senior, lead or director level
• A portfolio strong on both concept and craft, showing brand and campaign work — and evidence of consistency across volume, not only one‑off showpieces
• Strong conceptual thinking: you generate original ideas rather than jumping straight to execution, and you can turn a complex brief into a clear creative narrative
• Brand strategy awareness — positioning, audiences, and connecting business objectives to creative solutions
• Fluency in social‑first, platform‑native campaign creative
• An exceptional eye for detail and strong typographic craft
• Confident with print artwork and production
• Experience briefing and directing freelancers — photographers, filmmakers, animators and other specialists
• Experience with high‑profile brands and/or complex campaign rollouts
• Figma as your day‑to‑day, alongside advanced Adobe CS. Motion skills an advantage

A word on sport

A meaningful part of this role is racket sports — tennis in particular. We're not just looking for a fan. We're looking for someone who can get properly under the skin of a subculture and make work that people inside it recognise as true. If that's tennis for you, brilliant. If you've done it with running, football, climbing, skate or music, we're just as interested.

What we offer

£62,000–£68,000 depending on experience, plus:

• Hybrid working — ideally 3 days a week in the Guildford studio, 2 remote
• 9–5. No evenings, no weekend heroics
• Genuine autonomy — you manage your own diary
• Exposure to a major global sports brand, alongside work in technology and B2B
• Structured personal development and training
• Pension scheme and salary sacrifice EV scheme
• Birthday day off and volunteer days
• Carbon reduction commitments and regular team culture days
• As a B-Corp studio, we look for people who share our commitment to responsible, thoughtful ways of working.